Thigh injury forces American Keys out of Wimbledon

Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

LONDON (Reuters) - Madison Keys, the last American woman standing in the singles at Wimbledon, was forced to withdraw from her third round encounter against Yaroslava Shvedova because of injury on Monday.

Madison Keys of the U.S. hits a return against Klara Koukalova of the Czech Republic during their women's singles tennis match on Court 12 at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London June 26, 2014. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett

The 19-year-old winner of the Eastbourne warm-up tournament injured her left thigh shortly before play was suspended because of bad light late on Saturday, with Kazakhstan’s Shvedova leading 7-6 6-6.

The American’s withdrawal sends 26-year-old Shvedova, ranked 65, into the last 16, where she will face either 11th-seeded Serbian Ana Ivanovic or German 19th seed Sabine Lisicki.

“I have a muscle strain in my adductor,” Keys told reporters.

”It’s not terrible, not really a long recovery time. But they were warning me it could get worse.

”I came in this morning and I had lots of tape on and I tried but I couldn’t get through warmup.

“Decided to call it this morning. I had so much tape on me I could barely walk.”

Keys and Shvedova had battled in near darkness on Saturday, even when play had been halted due to poor light on other courts, but the American was not looking for excuses.

”I think the umpires, the lines judges were having a hard time making the best calls,“ she said. ”I think one of them commented that he didn’t even know because it was so dark.